Census

The Resource Census
Label
Census
Statement of responsibility
Jesse Ball
Title variation
Census
Title variation remainder
a novel
Creator
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"When a widower receives notice from a doctor that he doesn?t have long left to live, he is struck by the question of who will care for his adult son?a son whom he fiercely loves, a boy with Down syndrome. With no recourse in mind, and with a desire to see the country on one last trip, the man signs up as a census taker for a mysterious governmental bureau and leaves town with his son. Traveling into the country, through towns named only by ascending letters of the alphabet, the man and his son encounter a wide range of human experience. While some townspeople welcome them into their homes, others who bear the physical brand of past censuses on their ribs are wary of their presence. When they press toward the edges of civilization, the landscape grows wilder, and the towns grow farther apart and more blighted by industrial decay. As they approach “Z,” the man must confront a series of questions: What is the purpose of the census? Is he complicit in its mission? And just how will he learn to say good-bye to his son? Mysterious and evocative, Census is a novel about free will, grief, the power of memory, and the ferocity of parental love. It is also an indictment of the cruelties of our society by a major writer."--Book jacket
Cataloging source
T7B
Dewey number
813/.6
Illustrations
photographs
Index
no index present
LC call number
PS3602.A596
LC item number
C46 2018
Literary form
fiction

Context

Context of Census

Work of

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